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Face It

I know you're all lovely and you're children are all lovely, but sometimes those close-ups show our not so lovely side. In this tutorial I will teach you how to touch up those face close ups. Remember the key to face touch ups to make them look natural! Hey and maybe you'll learn a few new tools along the way!

Don't you hate how difficult it is to get a good family shot? The more people the harder it is! That's why I was so pleased to get this shot taken by our own Belhepsibah aka Sara! The picture is high quality and we get good face close-ups that will give us a chance to try a variety of techniques.

As I do with all my pictures, I'm first going to play with my levels

Now lets get to work on those faces.

I always duplicate the layer just so I can go back if I need to as well as I can see the progress I've made. To duplicate, You can drag your layer onto the new layer icon, or you can hit Ctrl J .

Teeth
Now zoom in close! I think I'm going to start with the teeth. I've been meaning to get some of that whitener stuff, but I just never seem to get to it at the store. Lets whiten them up digitally!

Choose the dodge tool and on a soft brush carfully go over the teeth that need brightening. be very careful not to over do it or you will wash out the details and make it look fake.

That looks better. I went over and did my husbands teeth too.

If the teeth are too yellow or too dark, you may need to use the method I taught in the Color Changing tutorial.

Select around the eyes using any tool you want. I just used the lasso tool. Then holding down shift which adds to the selection I drew around the other eye selecting them both. I then copy and paste them onto a new layer (Ctrl c , Ctrl v) to make them easier to work with, without affecting the rest of the picture.

I then go into image - adjustments - curves I move the curve up very very slightly to make the eyes brighter.

Then because I have greenish hazel yucky eyes I want to bring out the green a little more so I go to the green channel in the curves and bump it up a smidge. Remember we're going for natural! Don't go crazy.

My baby has bluish grey eyes so I use the blue channel on his.

Another good way to brighten eyes is to use the same dodge tool we used on the teeth and with a very soft small brush go over the parts of the eye you'd like to brighten.

Now go to Filter - Sharpen - Unsharp Mask to sharpen up the eyes and make them pop . . . and still look natural. Don't sharpen too much!

if you have parts in the white that now look funny you can now erase them so just they color part of the eye is brightened.

Now those are some striking eyes. I do the same for my baby and my hubby.

Then I merge the eye layers with my main photo layer. In CS You select all the layers you want merged then merge them. In my photoshop 7 you link them then merge them.

skin
The first thing I fix on the skin are blemishes.

eww I have an ugly looking zit there! Jeez I thought those were suppose to be long gone once your no longer a teenager! At least in pictures I don't have to look like a pizza face!
Choose the healing brush tool. or also known as the band-aid tool.

Have your brush size just big enough to cover the blemish. Then move your curser over some nearby clear skin. hold down alt (you should get a kind of crosshair cursor) then click. You have now sampled the clear skin. Then simply go over your blemish and without alt click again. Ta da! Blemish be gone!

Lets go to my other most hated area. Under the eyes. Mine are always dark and I'm getting those lines there that say despite my acne I am definately NOT a teenager anymore!

In the same spot with the healing brush tool, you'll find the patch tool.

to use the patch tool you select around the area you want patched.
Then put your curser inside your selected area and drag to a clear area of skin. The patch tool will sample from the clear skin and around your selected area to make a smooth transition. If you ended up with a lot of black you selected too close to the eye. If this becomes a problem I will sometimes use the clone tool and then the patch tool over it to smooth it out. A little shadow under the eye is good. It makes it look more natural.

I'll now do the same to my other eye and my hubbys, though be very careful with glasses!

Now I did that for Jaden's eyes too thought his problem is not so much wrinkles and dark circles but for some reason around his eyes are always red. This photo isn't as bad as others but let me show you how I fix it anyway.

Use the lasso tool to select around the red area as well as a bit beyond so we can blend together later.
Copy and paste the selection so it's on a new layer. (Ctrl c , Ctrl v).

Go to image - adjustments - color balance

Adjust the colors so you have less red. I work mostly with midtones, but depending on your picture you may want to try tweaking the shadows as well. Don't worry about the hard lines around the outside or that we just changed the eye color. We'll fix that next. We just want to concentrate right around the eye. You'll want to leave a little red in there to match the rest of the skin.

With your eraser on soft erase around the outside edge till the color blends naturally. Then with a hard brush erase the inside of the eye. This is why we put this on a new layer. when you have it how you like it merge it with your main working layer like we did before with the eyes.

Ooo now our picture is looking good! Lets try one more thing just for the fun of it.

Eye brows, and make up

I never can keep my eyebrows under control! The plucking hurts so bad and I've been growing my hair out so I haven't gone to have it cut in awhile which is usually when I have them waxed as well. So lets do a little digital waxing.

Using the lasso select some skin that is similar to that around the eye brow.
copy and paste it onto a new layer. You will likely have to do this a few times for different brow areas.

Transform (Ctrl T) and move it so that it covers unwanted brow hair. you may have to us an eraser to blend a littl bit.
Do this all around the brow till you get the shape you want. Once you've done this merge all the pieces to the photo and then I sometimes will go around with the patch or healing too to blend things a little better.

Now the light kinda washed out my blush on my one cheek so lets add just a little bit back.

Select a pinkish color. I just used the color picker on my cheek on the other side to get pinkish color.

On a new layer use your ellptical marquee tool to make a circle and fill it with that pinkish color.

Now lower the opacity so it just barely shows. With a very soft eraser erase around the edges until you get the blush shape you want.

With this method you can also do eyeshadow and even lipstick! but we'll leave it there for now. This tutorial is long enough! merge your make-up once you have it how you want it and ta da! You have a magazine worthy photo!

Here's the beginning again and the end right below it. Each change is subtle but make quite a difference in the end.

Okay! Post your before and after pictures here. and also put them side by side or one on top of the other and put in the gallery under photo editing technique. Mine will be there soon!